


Less Excision with too much Metaphor

by crowleyshouseplant (orphan_account)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-31
Updated: 2011-10-31
Packaged: 2017-10-25 03:19:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/271157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/crowleyshouseplant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Castiel falls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Less Excision with too much Metaphor

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Excision of Grace](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/5175) by euclase. 



> I follow Euclase on Tumblr and one day she posted a link to her art of the same title and said something about people writing fic for it. So I did, and submitted an early draft that sucked, and I don't know if she ever got it or not. This is the cleaned up version though, which is much stronger.

Anna had said that ripping out her grace had been like cutting out a kidney with a butter knife.

Castiel doesn’t think that words exist in any language on earth or heaven to encompass it. Removing grace is like scraping a dull blade against a stick, sharpening it into a point by removing and reshaping. Feeling the jolt of the knife shift and buck in your grip. The scrape and burn of the wood against flesh rubbing callouses into your hand. Part of you is missing, but there is something new, something different and hard and scarred, in your place.

It’s like pulling up new plants, leaves pushing their way upwards, tender and green and translucent with sunlight, from their soil. Dirt clings to their tiny, fragile roots, just like skin and blood and pearlescent grace dirties Castiel’s fingernails, staining every cuticle.

And in the ground, there’s just a hole where the plant used to be.

The vessel empties itself, a skin that’s sprung a hole, leaking grace, spinning out the thread that anchors Castiel to the host, to heaven, to God, until it’s too thin, stretched too tight and too far until it dwindles away into a ragged, fluttering end like Jimmy’s heart flutters in their chest sometimes.

Dean says, “Like butter scraped over too much bread?” and Castiel nods, remembering what happens to bread like that, ratty and torn and crumbling, like their skin now eroding to dust.

“You won’t feel like this forever, Cas,” Dean says, his voice sad, hiding his eyes beneath his hand.

Castiel understands this. There is a myth that says God made man from dust, so perhaps it isn’t so surprising that ripping away grace ploughs deep furrows in Castiel’s being because instead of existing as a wavelength of celestial intent, Castiel is become earth—empty, dry, cracking, thirsty for water, starving for someone to find sustenance from that stretch of self, to be sustained by that patch of dirt that’s been worn and weathered to a wasteland. 

Castiel remembers when the words “My head hurts” escaped because angels don’t have heads—except Castiel does, because Castiel is trapped inside the skin of Jimmy Novak, contained by something shaped from earth, becoming the sand lapped away by an ocean teeming with nibbling-mouthed fish named Dean and Sam and Bobby, dragging Castiel down with the tide held by the mercy of the moon when Castiel had once enveloped it with a limited expanse of wings and marveled at its iridescent glow, a pale imitation grace, a mere reflection of light.

  
Life will happen. Dean will happen—had already happened—planting Castiel, seeding Castiel with life, hard nuggets of humanity waiting to grow into something green and beautiful until they wilt and brown, degrading into cobwebbed skeletal fragments that break apart under children’s shoes.   


Castiel will scratch bug bites and the itch won’t go away. Will drink too much alcohol and hug a toilet, like the Winchester boys often did. Will dry swallow pills and take too many sometimes. Will sleep for the first time and will dream and will pace the floor unable to sleep and will wake from nightmares, sheets twisted around legs sticky with sweat. Castiel will need to wear deodorant. Will need to shower, soaping skin, following the shape of muscles with a washcloth. Find out which bits tickle and which bits don’t. Will forget to brush teeth and forget to floss. Castiel will do laundry. Will scrub blood and grave dirt and the reek of sulphur out of the tattered trench coat. Will prick clumsy fingers sewing on popped buttons, bleeding blood without grace. Will suck on the wound with a soft tongue, a warm mouth, and chapped lips.

In the mornings, Castiel will drink coffee heavy with milk and sweet with sugar. Will eat apple pie with Dean.

Dean settles his hand on Castiel’s shoulder, his eyes searching for the person he calls Cas. “You okay?” 

“I’m fine,” Castiel says, the soundwaves of Jimmy’s voice bumping up their throats, echoing somewhere in the gut of their stomach.


End file.
